


Fate Has A Way Of Playing Games, And I've Been Keeping Score

by Dikhotomia



Series: Whumptober 2k19: FE3H Edition [13]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Day 13 Adrenaline, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I guess? That tag applies?, Overprotective Rhea is overprotective, This is another one of those 'I had no idea what I was doing' with it ideas, unwilling games of cat and mouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 11:14:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21035333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dikhotomia/pseuds/Dikhotomia
Summary: "She turns to avoid the fear and worry in his eyes, blade drawn and jaw clenched. She knows her odds, knows that without using her power she wouldn't be able to survive on her own, not alone against all of them. But as the first one bursts from the treeline she stops thinking about her odds and leaps at him, righteous fury carrying her sword and making her strikes brutal and precise. He goes down and two more join, axe ringing off her shield as she swings to meet them."OrSeiros will always protect her family, no matter what.





	Fate Has A Way Of Playing Games, And I've Been Keeping Score

**Author's Note:**

> I really, really like playing with pre-canon.

"We need...time. She's wounded, Seiros I can't--"

They didn't have the time to argue, to talk it out, not with Cethleann bleeding and Cichol's rising desperation driving the pounding of her own heart, the sing of adrenaline in her veins. They had no time when there was half a dozen of Nemesis' bandits closing in on them. 

"Go," she says, shoving his shoulder. "Go I'll draw them away, buy you time."

"But Seiros--"

"Go!"

She turns to avoid the fear and worry in his eyes, blade drawn and jaw clenched. She knows her odds, knows that without using her power she wouldn't be able to survive on her own, not alone against all of them. But as the first one bursts from the treeline she stops thinking about her odds and leaps at him, righteous fury carrying her sword and making her strikes brutal and precise. He goes down and two more join, axe ringing off her shield as she swings to meet them.

Cichol is gone, vanished among the overgrowth of grass as woods gives way to field. She would follow them soon, once she finished this violent dance of blades, body twisting and weaving to evade as many blows as possible. She ignores the sting of a wound opened on her bare shoulder, the cloak she usually wore wrapped around Cethleann to staunch the bleeding. Her blade flashes forward in response, aiming high and with enough force to cleave the bandit's head half off his shoulders. 

Seiros can hear the other's coming, shouts echoing from the edge of the woods amid the clash of her sword against the last bandit's axe. She digs in, shoves him back and kicks out, heel hammering home into the center of his chest. Then she runs, turning and sprinting into the cover of the high grass that whips at her bare skin and stings against her wound. They don't follow, but she doesn't slow, an arrow whistling over her shoulder forcing her to divert her path slightly. 

She runs until she can't anymore, until her lungs burn and the adrenaline that carried her through the fight begins to leave her in increments, dragging her body down with screaming muscles and a desperate inability to catch her breath. She has no idea where she is, no idea where Cichol went, which direction he might have taken once the grass gave way to the river bank. Left? Right? The current was too strong to cross, but it doesn't stop her from dipping her hands in to wash the blood off them and cup some of the rushing water to drink.

There's no staying, ignoring the protest of her legs as she straightens and chooses a direction. Right, she thinks, choosing to follow the river downstream, fingers threading through her hair, senses alert for any noise that wasn't an animal or the rushing of water. She walks until the sun dips below the horizon, the sky blazing red and orange, melding into the purple and blue of night. She walks until the temperature drops and a chill begins to creep across her skin.

She walks until she can't anymore, her exhaustion overcoming her and forcing her to find cover in another patch of woods. She doesn't build a fire, simply curling up against the trunk of a tree and letting herself doze, instinct on high alert. Seiros still finds herself slipping deeper, crickets lulling her into a false sense of comfort --

_Silence._

Her eyes snap open, adrenaline -- now a familiar friend -- waking her faster and bringing the word into focus. The moon is high, it's blue light casting shadows through the canopy of trees overhead. She's not exactly sure what woke her, the lack of sound, or the sound that ended the cricket song she'd fallen asleep to. If it's an enemy she should be dead, head cleaved from her shoulders by an axe, or impaled on an arrow or sword, not awake and alert to the potential attack.

It could just as easily be a predator, the animal confused at her presence here in it's territory. But she doesn't stay to find out, slipping around the trunk of the tree and using the soft light of the moon to weave her way through the woods, steps quick but quiet from the years of needing to rely on stealth rather than brute force.

They were only five now, and they were the hunted.

A shiver of movement beside her sends her into a near run, vaulting over a fallen tree and ducking into a tangle of ferns that do little to hide her. The person who steps out isn't one of Nemesis' bandits, but one of the men belonging to his elites. He moves slow, ducking lower to the ground and looking around for any signs of his quarry. The quarry who watches him intently, fingers closing around the hilt of the dagger at her waist. She holds her breath, going as still as possible amid the ferns that brush her in the light breeze. 

Seiros springs when he gets close enough, closing her hand around his mouth and dragging him into her hiding spot, dagger plunged into his throat. She leaves him to drown in his own blood, watching for only a second as he struggles to stop the bleeding, a horrible gurgling wheeze escaping him.

There could be more, she thinks as she takes off again, blind and unsure and sacrificing speed for silence. The forest around her doesn't stir beyond the hiss of wind through the leaves, night animals and insects still holding their own collective breath while she slips by, still listening for any sign of anyone else in pursuit of her.  
Of all of them.

She thinks Cichol must have come through if there were people searching, hoping that he made it somewhere he and Cethleann would be safe. Allied territory, a cave, it didn't matter so long as no more harm had come to them. She could imagine that he was likely hoping much the same, and while she silently promised she would do her best to get back to them relatively unharmed, she couldn't be sure.

A twig snaps and she freezes again, dropping low and scanning her surroundings once again. Her blood rushes in her ears, pulse thundering loud enough she wonders if she was hearing things. She waits, sliding underneath a tree that had fallen against another, fitting herself between the lowest point of the trunk and the ground. She hates this, having to hide and fight and run, but she didn't want to senselessly endanger those humans that had decided to take pity on them.

No one else needed to die to protect them.

What she needed was a way to fight back, to stand up against Nemesis and his elites and cut them down for what they had done. For the terror they now rain across this land in their mad hunt to end Seiros and her race entirely. What she needed was to find someone strong enough to do that, her slow trek south yielding less and less resistance, but still too much for her to feel comfortable.

She could only hope -

"Cichol?" She whispers, leaning out slowly from underneath the rotting wood. She hopes the figure she sees so close by to her is who she thinks it is, hopes that the light and her exhaustion aren't playing tricks on her and luring her right into a blade in her throat. She finds it's not when the man in question turns, his superior hearing picking up the bare rasp of her voice.

"Seiros?" he questions, trying to locate her and startling slightly as she pulls herself out from her hiding spot and rises to her feet. "It is you. Oh, I've been worried sick about you all day. Come, there's a house nearby with a couple who was willing to shelter us." He speaks quickly, eyes casting around for their pursuers even as he closes the distance between them to take hold of her forearm.

"What are you doing out here?" She asks, following his gentle tug and letting him lead her in the direction he came from. 

"I just. I had a feeling I needed to come out here, and low and behold here you are." He sounds flustered, annoyed at himself for it, free hand waving slightly in the air. "I almost didn't come out, but I couldn't sleep."

"I see your intuition is as sharp as ever, how fortunate for me." 

He scoffs and she can almost see the roll of his eyes, his pace quickening once they reach the clearing, the house he mentioned standing in the center of it. Dark and quiet.

She allows herself to relax once they're inside, her eyes falling on Cethleann where she lays asleep on the couch.

"We can't keep doing this, Cichol," she says quietly, stepping into his side and waiting until he looks at her. "We have to kill Nemesis." She had a promise to keep and she couldn't fulfill it until he was dead and she had the sword he created from their mother's bones back in her hands.

"You're right," he agrees, tangling their fingers together. "But I don't know how to even begin to-"

She silences him with a shake of her head. "We'll continue to head south like we originally planned. See what's there...then, well...we'll try and find Maculi and Indech and go from there."

He nods.

They part after that, settling down to sleep.

_Soon this would all end, one way or another._


End file.
